1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital image processing technique, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for processing anatomical images and generating an atlas relating to anatomical features in anatomical images.
2. Description of the Related Art
Identification of abnormal structures in medical images is an important application useful in many fields of medicine. For example, identification of cancer structures in mammograms is important and useful for prompt treatment and prognosis.
Reliable anatomical structure detection, however, is difficult to achieve because of variations in anatomical shapes and medical imaging conditions. Such variations include: 1) anatomical shape variation between similar anatomical parts of various people or of the same person; 2) lighting variations for medical images taken at different times; 3) pose and view changes in medical images; 4) change in anatomical structures due to aging of people; etc. Such medical imaging variations pose challenges for both manual identification and computer-aided detection of abnormal structures in medical images.
Disclosed embodiments of this application address these and other issues by using a method and an apparatus for generating a probabilistic atlas of features using a shape modeling technique for anatomical shapes. The method and apparatus generate a mean shape representative of a class of anatomical shapes, and then calculate a deformation field that describes variations of anatomical shapes with respect to the mean shape. The method and apparatus generate a probabilistic atlas as a map of the likelihood of abnormal structures on the mean shape. The method and apparatus can create a probabilistic atlas for other types of structures besides abnormal structures in medical images. The method and apparatus can be applied to other types of images besides medical images, to generate a probabilistic atlas for other types of features besides anatomical structures.